Saturday, August 22, 2009

So I'm flipping through the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and I come across Appendix 3, "Inspiring Reading." Given that Planet Storiesseems to have as its goal the re-publication of a goodly part of Gygax's Appendix N, I was quite interested in what the guys and gals at Paizo considered their primary literary influences. For the benefit of those who haven't seen it, here's the list:

It's a good list, to be sure, certainly not identical to my own, but then why would it be? I find it hard to quibble about any list that includes Howard, Kuttner, Leiber, Merritt, and Wagner. And Smith finally earns his much-deserved spot, which makes me happy. There are a few authors there I don't much care for, but that's true of Appendix N as well, if I'm honest.

Would that Pathfinder weren't a 600-page behemoth and I'd probably be happier still.

This list underlines my disinterest in Pathfinder (although, to be honest, the 3.5-derived ruleset had already done the job): some of my favorite "Appendix N" authors are missing (Poul Anderson and de Camp & Pratt (both separately and together) being the most egregious -- D&D shorn of their influence wouldn't be D&D to me -- not to mention more subjective personal faves like John Bellairs, Fredric Brown, Gardner Fox, and Margaret St. Clair), several of the added authors I'm not particularly fond of, and those post-70s fantasy authors who I do like and would consider important influences for any updated D&D I'd have any interest in (like Glen Cook, Gene Wolfe, Terry Pratchett, and, perhaps more controversially, Philip Pullman and J.K. Rowling) are generally missing as well.

Also, while Les Miserables is one of my favorite novels, I have no idea what it's doing on this list, except perhaps that its epic scope is how they envision their Adventure Paths playing out, in which case I'd have to say its influence is a net negative.

It's cool that they included a list like this, and the thought that it might inspire more fans to seek out the likes of Algernon Blackwood, P.J. Farmer, and Fred Saberhagen warms my heart a bit, but it does nothing to sell me on the game. If anything, the opposite -- D&D - Poul Anderson and de Camp & Pratt + Clive Barker and Raymond Feist is no place I want to go.

It's cool that they included a list like this, and the thought that it might inspire more fans to seek out the likes of Algernon Blackwood, P.J. Farmer, and Fred Saberhagen warms my heart a bit, but it does nothing to sell me on the game.

That's fair, I think, but, given how rootless post-Gygaxian D&D has been generally, I nevertheless consider it a small victory to see a list of inspirations that consists of books rather than movies or TV shows.

James said:"That's fair, I think, but, given how rootless post-Gygaxian D&D has been generally, I nevertheless consider it a small victory to see a list of inspirations that consists of books rather than movies or TV shows."

Rootless is in the eye of the beholder I suppose. My preferred edition is, to me, clearly and deliberately rooted in the lavish video games and slick movies that got me into roleplaying in the first place. Now, I will not claim that the Final Fantasy consol games or movies like "Labyrinth" are anywhere near as sophisticated as the books that formed the substrate of your imaginations, but they are not so lacking in depth and evocative flair that they can't form a respectable base for a leisure activity.

James said:"D&D increasingly has less and less connection to the literary inspirations of Gygax and Arneson. I don't think that's a matter of dispute."

Ah, a semantic misunderstanding. Yes, the tree I'm sitting in only has a few roots left in the original soil, no dispute. I was only reacting to the perceived implication that its newer roots don't count somehow.

The way I see it, I'm a relative youngster who wants to keep running D&D style games for a good long time, and if movies and TV shows are what keep fresh blood coming to my table then I'm ok with that. Legolas as portrayed by Orlando Bloom serves just as well as the book version for that purpose.

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